Even though unplanned the sheep farm visit made the extra 2 day bus trip from Te Anau to Dunedin worth doing. There are 40,000,000 sheep living in New Zealand which amounts to 10 sheep for every person. From the figures it's not difficult to imagine that these cute woolly creatures that never tire eating are a resource to New Zealand.

After welcoming us to his farm, James led us towards a shed that could have doubled as a hanger for a small Cessna. Neatly aligned by the left wall where an assortment of rubber boots marked from 3 to 12 waiting for us to wear. The shed was almost on par with the boots area in Franz Josef which wasn't anything like a sheep farm. This was the first clue that farming is done professionally here not in the rudimentary style I remember from my childhood days back home. As I was wearing the boots I was thinking how cool it would have been to help James on the farm. Not that I have a farming fetish or anything but I think that getting first hand experience in an industry, which to a certain extent is representative of part of New Zealand, is an excellent way to immerse yourself in the culture.

James called his son to drive the tractor to the shed. The 7 of us climbed in the tractor's back carriage for a tour around the sheep paddocks. This time of the year was lambing season so we went to look for any sheep giving birth.

[As soon as Sheamus (Who is Sheamus?) saw the first herd of sheep he started trembling with excitement and jumped out of the carriage. He rolled in the damp soil covering his back in mud and sprinted towards the nearest sheep sticking out Linda in her face. The bastard went to look for Linda's mother. My face flushed red in fury. It was no use calling him come back to the tractor, he wouldn't listen. When we returned back from the tour he was still nowhere to be seen and to give him a lesson I left to Invercargill without him.]

We arrived at the first paddock and as promised there was the first mamma sheep giving birth. Apparently there was a complication with the birth because the lamb was coming out the incorrect way. James hurried towards the sheep leaving the tractor's machine roaring noisily. After studying the situation closely he started returning the baby lamb back inside the mother. Sticking your hands deep inside a sheep isn't exactly my idea of holiday fun. My inclination to help on the farm vanished, and my work desk felt so reassuring. I was filming the whole show while most of my Stray mates turned their faces away from the gross operation in progress.

When James reassured himself that everything was back to normal we continued visiting the paddocks. With every herd we passed James kept his eyes open to ensure those giving birth had no complications. Fortunately he didn't have to play the midwife another time. Each time we passed a newborn sheep he sprayed with a green spray to identify the day when it was born. Most of these lambs are sold for their meat to be exported. The farmer decides which lambs to keep and which lambs to kill based on characteristics like wool quality, meat quality, sex etc. The lambs can be killed from when they're 8 weeks old, and the lambs that are born early are worth more because there's a bonus for early exports to the British market.

The impression that the farming here is professional was reinforced when James told us that he knew how many lambs each sheep was going to give birth to. He knows this by scanning each pregnant sheep to know how many lambs there were. These farms here contain thousands of sheep so administering the farm isn't a trivial task. It was interesting to learn how the farmer knows which sheep are pregnant and require scanning. During the mating season a ram is let loose in a paddock for a week. A special purpose harness with an ink pad is fitted on the ram so that when he mates with the sheep the ink stains the sheep's wool making it possible for the farmer to identify which sheep were sexed. I thought this was an ingenious idea to help in administering the farm because it reduces the scanning of so many ugly sheep that the ram bother with.

After the paddocks tour it was time for sheep shearing. The task to move the sheep from the paddocks to the shearing shed was left in the hands of the sheep dog. The dog jumped in the paddock and chased the sheep out guiding them inside the shed. The sheep were so obedient it would have made my school teachers envious. There are two different types of dogs that are used by the farmer, one guides the dogs towards the shed and the other guides the sheep inside the shed.

Before we started peeling the wool off the sheep we were given some over-clothes to avoid stinking our clothes with sheep smell. Sheep wool stinks. It's oily and the smell of the wool sticks to your hands immediately so imagine what would happen to the clothes. This time the clothes weren't comparable with the ones the glacier guides gave us but the 1970 turquoise track suit trousers still saved me the trouble of having to wash my clothes again.

I was the second person of the group to shear the sheep. James's son did most of the work handling the sheep and making sure that I didn't get kicked. All I had to do was to keep this stiff vibrating shaver steady and move it along the sheep's body. Most of the skill involved is more in holding and handling the sheep, although shaving comes in different degrees of satisfaction. I was surprised to learn that there are sheep shearing competitions where professional shearers compete to determine the fastest and most efficient sheep shaver. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this competition was invented in New Zealand considering the aptitude these people have at inventing strange sports.

Sheep shearing competitions may be strange but when I saw the yearly 'sheep industry' calendar with nude shearers and wool handlers (men and women) I was astounded. I'm not sure whether it was because of the nude people covered in wool or because I learned that are professional wool handlers. The wool handler's job is to collect the wool, sort it according to the grade, and then pack it. I can't imagine how a wool handler smells like.

After this cultural activity James invited us to his house for a cup of tea and some cookies. A rural farmer in the South Island of New Zealand was another perfect candidate for the "where am I from game" but I ended up giving the answer quickly for fear that I'd spend the night there and might be required to help a sheep giving birth. In my opinion the 100% New Zealand award should be given to the sheep farming activity. No other activity felt as authentic as this one.

I spent the rest of the evening shopping with Klaus and Mark in Invercargill. This is the southernmost village in the South Island and the gateway to Steward Island. I would have liked to visit Steward Island but I didn't have enough time to go there. I was further discouraged to visit when I learned that some people got stranded there because the ferry between Steward Island and Invercargill didn't operate due to bad weather conditions.

In the evening the three of us went to the cinema to watch Silent Hill. I appreciated how the movie recreated the feel of the game but that was the only positive thing about the film. If you've never played the game you might be better off not watching it. If you do watch it anyway and don't like it then it's all your fault – you have been warned. Rating 1.5 / 5

View the complete Sheep Shearing Gallery here

Coming next: Invercargill to Dunedin